Think Charlie Brown Is a Loser? He's Got the Secret to Business Success

This comic strip "loser" can teach you a thing or two about what it takes to succeed in business.

What's worse than charging full-speed to kick a football, only to have it pulled away at the last minute, sending you flat on your rear end?

Getting bamboozled into doing it over and over again!

But that's exactly what Charlie Brown does in the comic strip, Peanuts.

Lucy invites him to kick the football, he hesitates, remembering how he wiped out the last time, but Lucy always comes up with a way to convince him that this time will be different.

It sure looks a lot like what entrepreneurs go through: get an idea, build it, get customers, raise money, run out of money, lather, rinse, and repeat... until you either sell the company, shut it down, or make it big.

Charlie Brown: Loser or... Future Winner?

To many, Charlie Brown is the archetype of the loser. He's fooled, not once, not twice, but over and over again. He's beyond shame and possibly even insanity.

Nevertheless, when it happens, it hurts. We pour ourselves into our business, after all, and when the market doesn't respond positively, we take it to mean that maybe we're no good, that we're not worth as much as we thought.

Entrepreneurs need to be able to dig deep inside themselves and say, "This didn't work out, but I will try again tomorrow."

The lesson here isn't to keep kicking and falling. Entrepreneurship is risky by nature, but that doesn't make it okay to take stupid risks. We should still be intelligent about the risks we take.

And remember, it's not always the right time to kick.

Sometimes, you're wiped out. Or there are many other things going on. Births, deaths, moves. Whatever it is, you're distracted. Or you just don't have the energy to make a go for it.

It's perfectly okay to say, "This looks like a great opportunity, but I don't have the bandwidth for it. I'm going to pass."

That's certainly how I felt right after my first startup caved in with the economy in 2008.

The opportunity probably won't wait around, but you'll find or create a new one when you're ready.

In the meantime, recover and recharge for the work, long nights, and uncertainty that lie ahead.

You see, entrepreneurs are a lot like Charlie Brown. No matter how badly burned we get from the last failure, we always get up, brush ourselves off, and make another go at it.

Because having the chance to send that football flying is so worth the risk of falling on our rear ends.